School Lunch game for mobile devices

ABSTRACT

A video game used on mobile devices (including, but not limited to, iOS and Android devices) whereby a user acts as a lunch lady and must slide graphical representations of food to oncoming waves of students, thereby keeping them from reaching the end of a lunch table before a timer expires. Each level contains more students, representing the progression from K-12 in a typical U.S. grade school setting; the user has the ability to obtain different food items between levels to use in the game.

Game Development:

Goal: To provide a fun, entertaining game that is easy to understand and use, without creating a situation whereby users get bored quickly.

Basic Functionality:

Users must race against the clock for increasingly difficult waves of hungry school students. Users gain points by keeping the student characters in the game fed until the bell for recess rings, which allows them to increase their school lunch budget and purchase better food items.

Game Play (Refer to FIG. 1, Page 4):

Students enter cafeteria doors on the right side of the screen and move to one of three lunch tables. They progressively slide to the left, moving closer and closer to the “lunch lady” (the user). The user has to obtain plates of food that come down the conveyor belt on the left side of the screen (from top to bottom) with random food items that the user has purchased with their school budget (the game starts with a default set of menu items). The user slides the food down the table with a flick of the finger towards each approaching student. Depending on the food item, the student gets pushed back to the right for a time while they eat the food (small food items push the student back slightly; full trays push the student back much farther).

Once the student finishes a plate of food (the time it takes to accomplish this varies, based on the food item), they start moving to the left again towards the lunch lady and the empty plate starts sliding back toward the left (2-3 times faster than the student). The user must tap the empty plate to pick it up. Failing to pick it up causes the plate to fall to the ground and break. If a student already has food and a plate gets pushed to the right down the table, it goes to the next student moving up the table. If all of the students on a table have food and a plate is thrown, it slides off the right end of the table, crashing to the floor and the user has to repeatedly tap a mop icon to clean up the mess (which takes 4-5 seconds). This stops the conveyor belt and halts her ability to feed the students, taking precious time, while the students continue to eat and move closer to the left of the screen. Failing to clean up the mess causes incoming students to move to other tables. The more crowded the table gets, the harder it gets to tell who needs a tray of food or not. This continues until the timer expires, ringing a school bell indicating it's time for recess and all the students happily leave the cafeteria and the level is complete. The user gets bonus points for having no broken plates, but three broken plates in a level causes a food fight (student characters start throwing food at the lunch lady) and the user has to push an emergency “Principal” icon who then comes in to break up the fight, cancels recess and the students leave angry. This ends the level, and she loses points from her budget.

If food is not taken from the conveyor belt in time, it falls onto the floor at the end of the conveyor belt, requiring the user to repeatedly tap the mop icon (pressing the mop icon halts the conveyor until the mess is cleaned up).

If a student reaches the left side of the table without any food, they get angry and start throwing food items. If three students at a time reach the left side of the table, they start a food fight and the user has to press the emergency “Principal” icon again (this icon will be the face of an older man that looks kind of stern; the icon is grayed out initially, but with each plate that slides off the table, or each student that starts throwing food, the icon changes color (from gray to yellow to red to flashing with the third broken plate or student throwing food). Only when it flashes is the user able to activate the emergency Principal button.

Each new level represents a grade in school, starting with kindergarten, up to 12^(th) grade. Each level brings new (and more) students with unique personalities such as:

Some students are vegetarians and will not accept a plate with meat.

Some students only like junk food (e.g. dessert items).

Athletic students will not accept items such as salad, veggie burger, etc.

The students get bigger as the levels progress up to the 12^(th) grade (since they're older). In addition, they need more food as they get older, and they eat it faster and move along the table faster when not eating.

There are three maps in the game:

1—Grade school (K-5^(th) grade)

2—Middle school (6^(th)-8^(th))

3—High school (9^(th)-12^(th))

Each map has the opportunity for different lunch menus to be purchased with points won in the game. As an option, the user can pre-purchase better lunch items in-game through the mobile device's App Store.

Points Given For:

No broken plates

No food thrown

Points Deducted For:

Broken plates

No recess

Principal called in

Student(s) throwing food

Benjamin L. Young, Venture Games, LLC

Food Items:

Tropical chicken, chicken nuggets, Salisbury steak, hot dog, corn dog, hamburger, cheese burger, salad, soft taco, crunchy taco, veggie burger, baked potato, soup, grilled cheese sandwich, mac ′n cheese, pizza slice, grilled ham & cheese, turkey sandwich, pudding, jello, brownie, cookie, banana, apple, grapes, juice box, milk.

Characters:

A mix of boys and girls

The game starts with 15 regular kids that will take any food item no problem

Unique characters:

-   -   Skater (helmet and skateboard)     -   Sports jock (bigger kid, with football jersey)     -   Cheerleader     -   Gothic girl (black hair, dark clothes, skull and crossbones)     -   Veggie girl (pale skin, thin)     -   Hungry boy (skinny, but eats A LOT and FAST)     -   Big boy (belly pokes out from under shirt a bit; food doesn't         move him to the right of tables very much because he's heavy)     -   Geeky/nerd kid (glasses and crooked teeth)     -   Junk food kid (messy mouth and shirt)     -   Twin girls (look identical, enter the cafeteria together, sit         together) 

1. I hereby claim that the School Lunch game for mobile devices (“App”) provides an entertaining game to be used on handheld devices such as, but not limited to iPhone, iPad, iTouch, and devices using the Android© operating system and that this specific game has not been developed previously. The game requires the user to interact by sliding graphical representations of food items from a conveyor belt mechanism, across tables to oncoming students. The user must accomplish this task in before a timer expires. There are increasingly difficult levels and numbers of students. The game progresses from one level to the next as a representation of U.S. grade schools kindergarten through 12^(th) grade. As the user advances levels, the students get bigger and increase in numbers, making it more challenging for the user to accomplish the task of keeping the students fed before they can reach the end of a lunch table. Sliding a food item towards a student causes the student to slide away from the end of the table and pause for a varying amount of time while the student eats the food. When they are done eating, the empty plate slides back towards the user's end of the table and the student begins moving again and the user must repeat the steps to keep the students from reaching the end of the table before the timer expires. The App will be made using xCode programming for iOS devices. 